Re: Red Eclipse "missing sources"?
On 16-12-12 12:12, Markus Koschany wrote:
> On Sat, 15. Dec 17:41 Vincent Cheng <vincentc1208@gmail.com> wrote:
> [...]
>> So in summary...contrary to what you'd expect, packages that are
>> suitable for main is not defined by what's in the DFSG or Policy, but
>> by 2 other things instead:
>> - how your sponsor DD defines "source"
>> - whether or not the ftpmasters find the above definition acceptable
You are sort of right, but also sort of wrong. Here's how I see it:
The uploading DD uses their personal interpretation of what is source.
(And for NEW packages, ftp-master double-checks with their
interpretation.) GNU's definition of "the preferred form for
modification" is used by many people, I think. By the way, this means
that for an image which was rendered by Blender or Povray and then
excessively edited with the Gimp, the source is in fact the bitmap, not
the Blender file. And the bitmap may be in any format, it doesn't have
to be xcf. To put it simply, this definition doesn't care about how it
is generated, it only cares about how you would make a modified version.
In some cases, this may depend on what modifications you want to make,
leading to both the bitmap and the blender file as sources.
However, you are mistaken that everything in a Debian binary package
must be compiled during package build. Personally I do like to do this,
mostly because that way you are certain that everything is indeed
buildable (so what you distribute as source really is the source, not
something broken that used to be source). However, there is one place in
particular, where a large group of DDs are not rebuilding things from
source:
Makefile.in and configure is not generated from Makefile.am and
configure.ac in many cases, and people even advice others not to do
this. Personally I do create them (with dh-autoreconf), but many
packages just copy an updated config.guess and config.sub and use the
generated Makefile.in and configure. With the risk that it doesn't match
the provided Makefile.am or configure.ac, and the downside that
debian/rules doesn't document how to create them (this may be a problem
if you need special flags to automake or autoconf).
Personally, I remove all generated files in the clean target of
debian/rules. That way, I am certain that everything is rebuilt. There
is one exception: The translators asked me to generate their debconf po
file in the clean target, so they don't need to build a package in order
to start translating. That's reasonable, so I do that. However, while it
is not removed in the clean target, it is rebuilt.
Anyway, back to the point: Debian does _not_ require that everything is
compiled when a package is built. It requires that the source is
present, and that the tools required to build it are free (they don't
even have to be in Debian; I've seen an example where this mattered for
a cross-compiled binary for an embedded device. Cross-compilers are not
packaged in Debian (they are in emdebian), but they are free, and
buildable from the gcc source. By not building this file from source at
package build time, the package can still go in main). Especially for
graphics, I think it is not uncommon to use generated images and have
the source present as well. Look at the source of gfpoken, and see the
trouble you have to go through to actually generate the artwork at
package build time. It can be done (I did it), but scripting blender and
gimp is quite some work, especially if you haven't done it before.
>> (I was going to include my own definition above, but then I realized
>> that nobody would actually care, and I have better things to do than
>> to rant about the status quo.)
>
> I think we should be careful with claiming that people are not
> interested in different opinions and why games are in the non-free
> section. I bet there are a lot of people like me before who are lurking
> in the shadows of the internet trying to find more information about
> specific games in Debian and eventually find some pieces of information
> here on this list. So every comment on topic is valuable, a source of
> information for all people and it can also help to start a new
> initiative or keep things alive.
While you are right when this is about information about how things are
organized, he was talking about his own opinion of how they should be
organized, which I agree doesn't add much value to the discussion.
Perhaps my opinion above doesn't either, but I want to convince people
that building everything from source is the Right Way, so I decided to
post it anyway. :-P
> Markus (who is making popcorn now and eagerly awaits the rant to come)
You're welcome. :-)
Thanks,
Bas
Reply to: